LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE (2002)

To be fair, this sequel to the unfathomably popular original Tomb Raider is actually better than the first, but it still lacks the real essence of what a blockbuster movie should be about-humour, lots of action and a sense of fun. This film suffers from a severe lack of character development or a coherent plot.

Here, what translates to the screen is little more than the sense of watching the computer game, but being unable to interact with it.

However, it does have a few things that at least make it somewhat bearable. Not the least of which is star Angelina Jolie, who reprises her role as the fearless adventurer and archaeologist Lara Croft.

In this adventure she's trying to prevent the wrong people from getting their hands on Pandora's Box, which, it turns out, is not merely a legend but an actual artifact. In fact, it contains a plague that could mean the end of life on earth.

However, if she's going to locate that long lost treasure, Lara's going to need some help. So she enlists imprisoned mercenary Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) who happens to be her former lover. Having betrayed the British government on a previous mission, he doesn't seem to have the character or the loyalty to carry out such a daring plan.

Even with the added dimension of a steamy, stormy romance between the two adventurers, the film makes little headway in portraying the couple as romantically credible.

Usually, their conflict, be it romantic or mission-based, is little more than repetitive argy-bargy that soon becomes wearisome.

As dialogue-heavy as the film is, it should have been trimmed down because most of the characters speak so lifelessly that it would have been better just to concentrate on making the action sequences more exciting and the overall plot more lively and interesting.

Jolie's accent is still wobbly, veering from posh lady of the manor to mid-Atlantic drawl, but she's feisty enough to be watchable, even if the tight swimsuits that she has to wear appeal only to the underdeveloped prurience of adolescent boys.

Still lacking a killer script and some decent adventures, Tomb Raider 2 is unmoving, uneventful and unexciting.